Justin Trudeau Wins Liberal Leadership; Stephen Harper Poops Pants

[CN: disableism]

It's official: Justin Trudeau has won the leadership of the Liberal party. And what a win:

When the envelope was finally opened just after 6 p.m. Sunday on the stage of the Liberal party convention at the Westin Hotel, the suspense was not about which name would be read, but only about the margin. And that still managed to produce a wow: Justin Trudeau won 80 per cent of the votes for his first-ballot landslide.

...Wasting no time to begin using the authority of his overwhelming mandate, the 41-year-old, second-generation Liberal leader told the party that they can only win if they are far more unified than they have been in recent years.

“Canadians will not suffer fools gladly,” he said in his victory speech. “Canadians turned away from us because we turned away from them. Liberals were more focused on fighting with each other than then fighting for Canadians.

“Well, I don’t care if you think my father was great or arrogant,” he said. “It doesn’t matter to me whether you were a Chretien-Liberal, a Turner-Liberal, a Martin-Liberal, or any other kind of Liberal. The era of hyphenated Liberals ends right here, right now, tonight!

Did the Harper Conservatives have a totes brilliant response? Of course they did!

In a statement, the party said “Justin Trudeau may have a famous last name, but in a time of global economic uncertainty, he doesn’t have the judgment or experience to be prime minister.”

Hahahahaha perfect. In a time of global uncertainty, we need GARBAGE politics that we can count on, people! Why, if Justin manages to rebuild the Liberals into something not-garbage, we just won't know what to do! VOTE HARPERCON!

In all seriousness, this does indeed feel like a moment of change, but it's hard to say if that perception will prove true, or if the change will be a good one. In his op-ed in today's Globe and Mail, Justin focuses heavily on the middle class and their economic concerns, while also renewing his commitment to seeking answers from all swaths of Canadian society in building the new Liberal platform. (He seems to be taking the advice that David Climenhaga offered to both the Liberals and NDP: Hammer Harper on the economy.) Regardless, he has a whole lot of work to do just to rebuild the party, let alone challenge the NDP's place as the Official Opposition. I'd still rather see Tom Mulcair as the next PM, to be honest, but a Liberal Party that's rebuilt into a serious and trustworthy centre-left party does not seem to me a bad thing.

But let me make an observation about an irritating media narrative regarding Justin Trudeau: the tendency to act as if he emerged, Athena-like, from the forehead of his father. This ignores his his mother, Margaret Sinclair Trudeau (herself of a political family). Margaret Trudeau's sometimes-erratic, sometimes-charming political behavior played a not-insignificant role in her husband's political career until their divorce. In recent years, she has opened up about her bipolar disorder and emerged as a passionate advocate for mental health issues. Perhaps we're still too embarrassed about mental illness to see her as anything but a liability, as "crazy Maggie." Judging from his appearances in public with her, Justin doesn't seem to feel that way. The fact that Justin is the son of Margaret does not make me think worse of him; if anything, it gives me hope that his compassion and empathy are much more than an act for the political stage.

[Photo credit: Adrian Wyld, CP, Vancouver Sun.]

Have at it in comments, Shakers. Does this news leave you glad, sad, or indifferent? Should the Liberals just go away, or could Trudeau change the party for the better? Will this inspire the NDP to work even harder, climb even higher, or is this bad news for the left?

And most pressing of all: exactly how much laundry detergent will be spent washing out the poopy undies at 24 Sussex Drive today?

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Quote of the Day

[Content Note: Drones.]

"The consequence of drone strikes has been to radicalize an entirely new generation."—U.N. Special Rapporteur on drones, British lawyer Ben Emmerson.

And Emmersen, whose "legal insights will form the basis of his report to the U.N., expected later this year," has an additional warning about the long-term effects of the US' drone program:

Emmerson says the drone strikes are illegal under international law as they violate Pakistan's sovereignty and fly in the face of Pakistani government calls for them to desist -- and that they also legalize al Qaeda's fight against America.

He said: "If it is lawful for the U.S. to drone al Qaeda associates whereever they find them, then it is also lawful for al Qaeda to target U.S. military or infrastructure where ever (militants) find them."

Until now the U.S. has used its own lawyers to give legitimacy to the covert war being waged by drones. Now Emmerson believes it is time to challenge them.

"There is a real risk that by promulgating the analysis that is currently being developed and relied up by the United States they legitimize, in international law, al Qaeda, by turning it in to an armed belligerent involved in a war and that makes the use of force by al Qaeda and its associates lawful," he told me.

Droning is not making us safer. Droning is not making us safer. Leaving aside any debate about whether droning would be justified even if it were making us safer, IT IS NOT MAKING US SAFER.

The security argument is a red herring designed to obfuscate important ethical discussions we should be having about the drone program. It is bullshit. It is bullshit. It is bullshit. Droning is not making us safer.

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So This Happened

[CN: domestic violence]

Yesterday on Twitter, @sp0ka tweeted about a restaurant near them, Roots Bistro, who posted this sign (that @sp0ka took this picture of [used with permission]):

I know, I know. It's almost unbelievable.

On Twitter I asked:

So, @roots_houston, you think beer should be like rape. Like hitting a partner. Like humiliation and threats. Like control. Is that right?

— Misty Clifton (@mistyclifton) April 14, 2013

I didn't get a response. Shocking, I know.

The Houston Press Food Blog (@EatingOurWords) noticed this as well and contacted Roots Bistro:

When contacted about the sign and its intentions, a manager on duty who identified himself as Kenneth offered the following explanation: "That sign is not up now. It was up literally for 10 minutes and it was pulled down."

"We'll go on the Internet and look at other businesses and what they post on their signs," Kenneth said. "Another business had posted it," Kenneth continued, and the employee who put together Roots Bistro's marquee apparently took that as a cue that the message was somehow acceptable.

On Twitter the Press Food Blog told me: "The employee who put it up saw it on the Internet and thought it was funny."

Roots Bistro posted an apology on their Facebook page:

As the General Manager of Roots Bistro I would like to formally apologize for our recent signage . In no way would we ever ever promote violence on any level. We work tirelessly to support the people and organizations in this city and would never want to hurt or offend anyone. I applaud and support the passion displayed by people who believe in this cause, and fully support you in this. During the time that we have been open, we have supported many organizations and charities, including local women's shelters, and will continue to do so. I sincerely hope that you will accept my apology and continue the fight to support your cause!

This is the sign that went up after they took the other one down:

image courtesy of @sp0ka
* Nationwide, nearly one in ten high-school students (9.8 percent) has been hit, slapped or physically hurt on purpose by a boyfriend or girlfriend.

* One in three teens reports knowing a friend or peer who has been hit, punched, kicked, slapped or physically hurt by a partner. (source)

* Among victims of intimate partner violence, about 1 in 4 women (24.3%) and 1 in 7 men (13.8%) have experienced severe physical violence by an intimate partner (e.g., hit with a fist or something hard, beaten, slammed against something) at some point in their lifetime.

* Female victims experienced multiple forms of these types of violence; male victims most often experienced physical violence.

* 81% of women who experienced rape, stalking or physical violence by an intimate partner reported significant short or long term impacts related to the violence experienced in this relationship such as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) symptoms and injury. 35% of men report such impacts of their experiences. (source)

Seriously, Roots Bistro.

***

More info and support:

The National Domestic Violence Hotline (US & Canada): 1-800-799-SAFE or see their site

Rape, Abuse, & Incest National Network (RAINN): 1.800.656.HOPE or the National Online Hotline

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Dispatches from Gitmo

[Content Note: Detention; abuse; force-feeding.]

Samir Naji al Hasan Moqbel, a 35-year-old Yemeni man who has been a prisoner at Guantánamo Bay since 2002, told the story of his experience, with the assistance of an Arabic interpreter, to his lawyers at the legal charity Reprieve in an unclassified telephone call, and the New York Times has now published his translated story:

I've been detained at Guantánamo for 11 years and three months. I have never been charged with any crime. I have never received a trial.

I could have been home years ago — no one seriously thinks I am a threat — but still I am here. Years ago the military said I was a "guard" for Osama bin Laden, but this was nonsense, like something out of the American movies I used to watch. They don't even seem to believe it anymore. But they don't seem to care how long I sit here, either.

...I will never forget the first time they passed the feeding tube up my nose. I can't describe how painful it is to be force-fed this way. As it was thrust in, it made me feel like throwing up. I wanted to vomit, but I couldn't. There was agony in my chest, throat and stomach. I had never experienced such pain before. I would not wish this cruel punishment upon anyone.

I am still being force-fed. Two times a day they tie me to a chair in my cell. My arms, legs and head are strapped down. I never know when they will come. Sometimes they come during the night, as late as 11 p.m., when I'm sleeping.

There are so many of us on hunger strike now that there aren't enough qualified medical staff members to carry out the force-feedings; nothing is happening at regular intervals. They are feeding people around the clock just to keep up.

...The only reason I am still here is that President Obama refuses to send any detainees back to Yemen. This makes no sense. I am a human being, not a passport, and I deserve to be treated like one.

I do not want to die here, but until President Obama and Yemen's president do something, that is what I risk every day.

Where is my government? I will submit to any "security measures" they want in order to go home, even though they are totally unnecessary.

I will agree to whatever it takes in order to be free. I am now 35. All I want is to see my family again and to start a family of my own.

I encourage you to go read the whole thing.

There are no words to fully describe the rage and sorrow I feel that this is being done in my name. I do not want my government to do this. I do not believe it makes me safer. I do not believe it would be justified, even if it did.

President Obama promised to close Gitmo. Now we are into his second term, and that promise still has not been kept.

UPDATE: See also: Jess.

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Open Thread

Patti Smith

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Sunday Shuffle

Maroon5, Sunday Morning
How about you?

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Open Thread

Honey bottles

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Open Thread

Undulatus asperatus clouds

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The Virtual Pub

[Explanations: lol your fat. pathetic anger bread. hey your gay.]

TFIF, Shakers!

Belly up to the bar,
and name your poison!

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Process Model Ally Work, Part Two

[Content Note: White supremacy; ciscentrism; privilege.]

Part One is here.

I wanted to flesh out a bit an idea I mentioned in my #femfuture post: "I am white—the privilege conferred by which is deeply and inextricably embedded in the visibility of Shakesville in ways I can't even fully know."

One of the reasons I value the model of ally work as an ongoing process (an idea which I did not invent) is not only because I need to be aware of how I can leverage my privilege on behalf of people who don't share it, and vigilant about not trading on and exploiting my privilege, but also because I have to centralize an awareness that I am privileged in ways I don't see.

(For this post, I'm going to be speaking from a first-person perspective and focusing on my white and cis privilege, although these ideas are applicable for anyone who holds any kind of privilege, and although my race and gender are not the only axes of privilege I have.)

I can't identify, with certainty, every time I am privileged because I am white and/or cis; I can't know who gives my voice more credibility or more values my perspective, consciously or unconsciously, because I am white and/or cis.

That's something I can't control, but I can mitigate it by communicating in multiple ways that I value and find credible voices that are non-white and non-cis. And I can make sure I don't use my lack of control as an excuse to give myself permission to forget that I am actively privileged. I don't just have these privileges, the way privilege is sometimes talked about as though it is just another personal fact that exists in a void; I am the beneficiary of visibility, access, opportunity, authority because of them.

It's crucial for social justice activists to be acutely aware of the existence of invisible privileging, particularly because, in the very commission of the sort of ally work which necessitates criticism of people who share one's privileges, one's criticism is likely to be:

1. Privileged over the criticisms made by marginalized people.

2. Complimented/commended by the privileged people being criticized in a way that passive-aggressively demeans the form or content of the criticisms made by marginalized people.

I'll explain that more fully in a moment, but first I want to observe something about the personal nature of ally work, about which I've written before:

Recently, we've had a couple of threads about trans issues get nasty, and, in each case, I've dived in and gone ten rounds of virtual fisticuffs. I was pissed (PISSED, BROOTHA!!!), because I categorically do not consider the legitimacy of trans lives up for debate, and it infuriates me that there exist people who do. But I was pissed in a different way than I get pissed when it's a thread in which, for example, the legitimacy of my perceptions of my lived experiences as a woman are being debated, because being pissed on behalf of other people doesn't make my heart pound and my teeth grind the way being forced to defend my own goddamned consciousness does.

During those nasty threads, on the other side of the series of tubes connecting our respective inboxes, CaitieCat's heart was pounding and her teeth were grinding, because it was personal to her in a way it's not to me. I wasn't the one being attacked; my life wasn't being treated like a tetherball. My empathy allows me to be a tenacious ally, but my cis privilege insulates me from the resonant ache of being a lifelong target of transphobia. What is galling to me in a trans thread gone off the rails, can be not merely galling but triggering to CaitieCat, because it plucks the strings of her history.

And even though Maude knows CaitieCat can hold her own in any thread in the multiverse, as can the rest of the trans Shakers, my role as an ally is to make sure that they don't have to carry that burden on their own—that they aren't expected, in the middle of a personal attack, to swallow down ten metric fucktons of rising bile in order to face off against and/or try to educate someone who's hurting them, especially on the occasions when that hurt is deliberate.

Often the most important thing an ally can do is just be willing to stand in front of a friend and take a few arrows in the armor made thicker by degrees of distance, to give the priceless gift of: "I got this one."

That is a gift I deeply appreciate when, for example, the thin contributors jump in against fat hatred; the male contributors jump in against misogyny; the contributors who are also being marginalized in the same way I am but just have more spoons that day jump in and stand on the line while I catch my breath.

Great ally work is harm mitigation. It's being willing to step in and be aggravated so that someone else can avoid being harmed. Because no matter how angry, contemptuous, frustrated, and other words of rage-filled dissatisfaction I am with racism or transphobia, it's never going to feel to me the same way it feels to a person of color or a trans* person.

It doesn't feel the same as defending myself against misogyny and fat hatred.

For that reason, it tends to be easier for privileged people doing ally work to appear any one of those familiar words used to dismiss the criticisms of marginalized people because they are allegedly not these things: Civil, measured, thoughtful, reasonable, nice. It's a lot easier to appear to be civil, measured, thoughtful, reasonable, nice when it's not your body, your life, your identity under attack.

And so, winding back around to the idea of passive-aggressive compliments, what happens sometimes is that someone like me, a white cis lady, will write a criticism of racism or transphobia that is then received and spotlighted as Very Thoughtful (or whatever) by the privileged people being criticized, which not only entrenches the narrative that people engaging in prejudice are owed thoughtfully thoughtfulness delivered in a thoughtful tone, but also plays into the narratives that equate privilege with objectivity and marginalization with overreaction.

Whoops.

This dynamic elides the very important dichotomy between being a marginalized person who is personally under attack and doing ally work as someone who is standing in solidarity with a marginalized person who is personally under attack, and the different ways that feels.

(Not that everyone universally reacts the same way, anyway. I don't even react consistently the same when I'm personally attacked; it has a hell of a lot to do with my emotional wherewithal on a given day.)

My point is: If I am deemed more "reasonable" by people I'm criticizing in the position of ally, well, there are reasons for that which generally don't actually have anything to do with my being inherently more reasonable. I try to watch out for compliments from people sharing my privilege on doing ally work on behalf of people who don't, and to be aware of how they may function.

* * *

[Note: Because I think there might be some confusion about this point, I just want to explicitly clarify that I am not writing about comments among marginalized people and their/our allies saying, "Hey, good job!" to one another. I am specifically writing about the preferential and complimentary treatment given by privileged people who are being criticized to the critics who share their privileges.]

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RIP Republican Celebrity Task Force

Aww, the Republican Celebrity Task Force isn't going to happen. Sadface.

The Republican National Committee is meeting this week in the most touristy part of Tinseltown, but it's apparent the "Celebrity Task Force" recommended by last month's "autopsy" report isn't going to happen.

The proposed task force was the most mocked of 219 suggestions from a five-member committee tasked with looking into why the party fared so poorly in 2012.

"The Party is seen as old and detached from pop culture," the group said. "Establish an RNC Celebrity Task Force of personalities in the entertainment industry to host events for the RNC and allow donors to participate in entertainment events as a way to attract younger voters."

...There is a decided lack of star power at the committee's four-day spring meeting despite the locale. Still, the schedule nonetheless sought to capitalize on the Hollywood setting. The 168 members had a dinner reception Thursday night at the Rupert Murdoch-controlled Fox Studios. Their guest speakers were a California state assemblywoman, popular talk radio host Hugh Hewitt and former Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.).

"Oblivion," the new sci-fi film starring Tom Cruise and Morgan Freeman, premiered Wednesday at a theater adjacent to the hotel hosting the meeting.

Ripley's "Believe It Or Not" museum and the Hollywood Wax Museum are nearby, too. Multiple party leaders joked – anonymously – that those are metaphors for the state of the party.

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL!

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The Parks and Rec Open Thread

"It's true I am passionate about animals—because I am half wolf."
(Spoilers are not thinking about how much it itches herein.)

Y'all, I'm just gonna come right out with it: I totes blubbed when April saved the say in the most clever way ever, and at the look of beaming pride on Leslie's face. SUCH A GREAT MOMENT! Yay! BUT THEN! OMG! When Leslie handed April her new nameplate, with "Deputy Director" on it, and April asked how she made it so fast, and Leslie says, "I had it made your first week here. I knew you'd be going places, so I wanted to be prepared."—all the blubs forever! THIS SHOW.

Dwyer shower! Down to clown! Hey, wild stallions! Let's scent up! Sawdust ear! Show these garbage people out! Mud and blood bath! Retro-jammed! Ron eating a banana! Do YOU know who Bill Gates is? Do you? He lives in Seattle and wears glasses. FYI. Other things!

"OWW! You're fired! You're fired! The whole department is fired! OWW THIS HURTS! This was one of my running feet!"

"Ron, you've been sweating in here all day! Are you drinking any fluids?" "Yes, plenty." *pours Scotch*

"The man owns a Rolexus. It's a Lexus filled with Rolexes." "What's the point of that?" "TO HAVE IT! Which he does."

"This whole place runs on dibs."

"Do you exercise?" "Yes, lovemaking and woodworking." "Do you have any history of mental illness in your family?" "I have an uncle who does yoga." "Allergies?" "Cowardice and weak-willed men—and hazelnuts!" "Sexual history?" "Epic. And private."

"HA HA HA HA. Ahhh, he's disgusting, but I want to take his money and give it to needy people, so I'm just gonna keep on smiiiiiliiiiing! Yayyyy!"

RESUME: Orin.

"I think you've got several options. They're all terrible, but you have them."

"I think that guy wants to hunt me!"

"Donna?!" "Gentlemen."

"Do you have any experience with animals?" "A bat landed on my face once."

"Even if I wanted the job, I don't wanna do the stupid confirmation hearing, okay? Stupid councilmen asking me stupid questions about my stupid life. It seems stupid." "No, it's easy! They'll just ask you a few questions! Let's practice: What's your name?" "Batman. See? I failed."

"What's cholesterol?"

Discuss!

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Two-Minute Nostalgia Sublime

Marky Mark And The Funky Bunch: "Good Vibrations"

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Friday Blogaround

This blogaround brought to you by a sasquatch.

Recommended Reading:

Grace's and Jess' Let's Talk About Names series now has its own Tumblr, where all the previous entries are compiles, and new entries will be added. Yay!

And here are the latest in that series: Trudy and Kristin.

Some other thoughts on #femfuture at BitchMedia.

Guttmacher: State Policy Trends 2013: Abortion Bans Move to the Fore

Igor: Elizabeth Warren Tears into Federal Regulators for Shielding Big Banks

rboylorn: On Being Called Out My Name [Content Note: The post at this link includes discussion of racism and misogyny and ageism.]

Jorge: 'Stop Telling Women to Smile' Exhibit Opens in Brooklyn

Susie: We Can't Let Them Get Away with This

Angus: Raise Hell Not Tuition: On the Indiana University Strike

Rebecca: Girl Gamer Tells Guy to Shove His 'Fake Geek Girl' Crap in the Most Epic Way Imaginable

Leave your links and recommendations in comments...

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Daily Dose of Cute

Dudley
If I'm in the living room when Iain pulls into the driveway in the evening, I whisper in the quietest voice possible, "Daddy's home," and, no matter where they are in the house, the dogs come RACING! into the room, LEAP! up on the loveseat, and stare desperately out the front window, quivering with excitement as he walks up the path to the front door.

The only reason Zelly isn't in this picture is because, once he gets out of the car, she RACES! into the office to grab one of her plushy toys to toss gleefully into the air when he comes through the door. "YAY! IT'S A DAY! AND THE DADSY IS HOME!"

* * *

As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.

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In The News

[Content note: Homophobia, racism]

It's Friday:

The mood of the nation is at a six-year high in optimism. Welcome to Obama's America!

So, basically, everyone in George Zimmerman's family is kind of a nightmare.

Speaking of nightmares, Phyllis Schlafly and James Dobson "resent the insinuation that they've been unkind to homosexuals."

Meanwhile: The GOP is losing its homobigot base. Sad face.

"Let them eat ass!" — Marie Antoinette, probably: The French Senate has voted to adopt a bill for marriage equality.

TruFact™: The Legend of Boggy Creek used to scare the fuck out of me as a kid.

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Discussion Thread: Sit or Stand?

[Content Note: Scatological humor.]

So, last night, Iain and Kenny Blogginz and I were hanging out, and we got into the Great Sitters vs. Standers debate. Don't know what the Great Sitters vs. Standers debate is? Well, let me put it bluntly: It's a debate about sitting or standing to wipe your butt after pooping.

I am a sitter. Iain is a stander. And we (affectionately!) mock each other about our respective choices all the time.

It was my impression that standing is rare. Iain contended that standing was more popular than I believed. So, of course I had to research it (seriously, so much uproarious laughter during this entire thing), and I discovered that Iain was right! This (amazing, hilarious) Metafilter thread reports:

In April of 2007, College Humor conducted an informal poll of their readership's (ahem) wiping habits. This month [Dec. 2009], Drew Magary re-examines the results of that "study" for Deadspin, and comes to the same shocking conclusions. (Note: These links contain bathroom-related discussions that those with more delicate sensibilities probably won't enjoy.)

When finished with their business the restroom, about 50% of the people you know wipe their heinies standing up, and about 50% of the people you know do it sitting down. Furthermore, many report being completely unaware that the other option exists. And so the debate continues.

LOL FOREVER.

I did note, however, that College Humor and Deadspin have disproportionately male audiences, so I wondered if that skewed the (informal) results. "I am going to have a discussion thread about this on Shakesville, so more women can weigh in!" I declared.

So here we are.

Are you a sitter or a stander?

[As always, no judgment of other people's choices, please!]

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"Simply Unacceptable"

[Content Note: War.]

After the Pentagon assessed "with 'moderate confidence,' that North Korea has learned how to make a nuclear weapon small enough to be delivered by a ballistic missile," US Secretary of State John Kerry played down the assessment but warned North Korea this morning that "it would be a 'huge mistake' to launch a medium-range missile and said the United States would never accept the reclusive country as a nuclear power."

Kerry, who flies to China on Saturday and to Japan on Sunday, said that if North Korea's 30-year-old leader, Kim Jong-un, proceeded with a launch, "he will be choosing, willfully, to ignore the entire international community".

"I would say ahead of time that it is a huge mistake for him to choose to do that because it will further isolate his country and further isolate his people, who frankly are desperate for food, not missile launches."

...The North has issued weeks of shrill threats of an impending war following the imposition of U.N. sanctions in response to its third nuclear test in February. Kerry said the threats were "simply unacceptable" by any standard.

"We are all united in the fact that North Korea will not be accepted as a nuclear power," he said.

Hmm. You know, I agree that countries should not invest vast amounts of money on defense when there are struggling and hungry people among their populaces, and I also agree that military belligerence by national leaders endangers average citizens, and I further agree that nuclear weaponry is unacceptable.

And I invite the leaders of the United States to significantly decrease the defense budget and reallocate funds to the social safety net; stop using drones; and direct some of its energy to nuclear disarmament in the US.

Then maybe telling North Korea to do the same will not look like a hypocritical joke, even to this USian.

I know all the Very Important Reasons that the US is super special. I also know there is no chance of that shit happening. I'm not saying it's justifiable to treat your people badly and endanger them and threaten or harm people in other countries because bigger countries do it.

It's just, you know, fuck. Doctor, heal thyself.

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Open Thread

Peanut butter

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Question of the Day

What's the last great novel you read? And by "great novel," I don't mean a novel that's great as defined by some canonistic parameters, but just a novel that you personally thought was terrific.

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